Even if you’re already working on a longer piece, you never know… one of these prompts could be end up being part of that longer piece. Try using your characters’ names in the scenarios presented and see what happens!

Even if you’re working on a longer piece that draws largely on real life experience, blurry lines, embellishing, condensing, and omitting are part of the process. You could very well wind up with something you can use in your longer piece or something else.

You’ll inspire other people to DO IT.

I’ll spread your words around (and if you’re feeling shy about that, don’t let that stop you! I’m happy to just use your initials, if that’s what you prefer).

I might just maybe some day publish a book of all the winners at the end of the year, so… wouldn’t you like to be in it?!

Here’s your Fill-in-the-Blank Flash Fiction Friday* opening sentence.

If _____________ has given two whips about ___________________ she/he would have taken the ____________________ to the _________________, as __________________ had asked long before today and avoided the unfortunate encounter with ___________________.

The “Rules”

Fill in the blanks.

Finish the story in 1,000 words.

Post your story in the comments section below by the next Friday.

I’ll post the winner** on my social media sites.

Sending you mad writing mojo….

Johnnie
XXXX

*Writing is serious business, but sometimes it’s fun to have fun.

**Selection of the winner is arbitrary and depends on my mood, what I’ve eaten or haven’t eaten, how much sleep I’ve had, and my constantly shifting tastes…

It began to change my process when I was editing the book. At the time I didn’t have the money to hire a professional editor so I asked some acquaintances from writing workshops if they wouldn’t mind reading even the first chapter just so I get some feedback on it.

People were quite generous with their time, which I very much appreciated. It was through this process that I of course had to start thinking more about the process of communication, of how you convey a whole entire world that’s in your mind into someone else’s mind so that when they read your words they are picturing a whole world too. It may be somewhat different from how you imagine it but it still gives them a complete—not just picture, but experience.

When people came back to me and felt something for my protagonist, Sean Flanagan, and wanted to read to the end to see what happened to him, it was very gratifying.

By the time I was publishing 8 Days a Week I felt very thankful for the help I’d gotten.

The process of publishing made the audience much more real to me and me try to keep checking myself every so often when I write to make sure I’m still writing in a way that will be invite an audience in and not confuse anyone too much.

How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have?

For years I had many pieces of this and that; poetry, a few old songs from my teens, old characters I came up with before I had the skills to write for them, a few opinionated essays, mostly related to classism and sexism: the two main things that defined and ravaged my life for many years. I assume this is typical for all writers. We’re pack rats surrounded by scraps of our ideas from over the years.

In more recent years I worked very hard editing, revising, and rewriting everything I had, and ultimately throwing out what I had that wasn’t good enough. So at the moment I don’t have any extras lying around. I have just an idea for two other books, but I think they’re far off into the future. I have to take time for my master’s degree and my career at the moment.

Do you view writing as a kind of spiritual practice? Why or why not?

I think writing can be spiritual depending on the writer or the type of writing. Sometimes writing is more an act of storytelling, or an analytical exercise in truth-telling and making good arguments, and doing point-counterpoint. I’ve always seen poetry as more right-brain and emotional, and even more spiritual, and prose as far more left-brain. Sometimes when you’re writing you can feel like you’ve tapped into an incredible energy that may even go beyond yourself… but that could just be the endorphins, dopamine, or whatever else the act of creating art stimulates in artists. (Or both.)

How many hours a day do you write?

At the moment I can’t write much with work. But there have been times I was writing all day, every day. I literally wrote the first draft of 8 Days a Week in under two weeks, writing almost non-stop all day, every day, by hand. I’d have to put ice packs on my hand, wrist, arm, and shoulder at night to get the swelling to go down. But after a decent waiting period the dam broke and the story just flowed. The editing process took months, of course, but the first draft just kept coming.

What are your favorite literary journals?

I don’t have consistent favorites. I like to move around a lot so I get a very good mix of different genres, styles, and writers. When I want a new mix I go onto Poets & Writers online and look through their market listings, filtered by whatever criteria I’m in the mood for at the time. Then I find often obscure publications, usually online so I can easily access them.

What is the most difficult part of your creative process?

I suppose simply that when I’m really deep into one of my books I can’t really do anything else. I remember when I was getting ready to write Live Boldly, Fear Nothing I was going to an Irish dance class for a two or three weeks and I had to stop because I couldn’t concentrate. My head was just in Darian’s world, or thinking about Jenna’s storyline in it and what I wanted to say about (and say to) young women in her position, from her kind of background.

Art is a great gift and so is creating it, but it can also be incredibly draining and there are times when life just has to be put on hold for a while and that can be very hard. A few years ago I had a housemate who thought it was insane that I once went a few years without so much as going on one date. She couldn’t fathom it. I just said, I was busy learning how to write, edit, and publish books. I had no time for a personal life. It was worth it, but that was still an incredible sacrifice.

Do you believe in writer’s block? Why or why not?

I’m aware of it. I think it probably happens to all artists, it’s just more obvious with writers. For example, just think about all the singer-songwriters and bands who’ve had maybe two or three really good albums and then just had pretty bland albums. They can still play instruments and sing but that real, true spark of inspiration is gone. Once in a while they may still make a real gem but for the most part, their work isn’t very good anymore. If you do other forms of art you can still go through the motions but that’s a lot harder with writing.

I think the answer to this problem is to think about sources of inspiration. For the aforementioned musicians the answer is probably to leave their new mansions and go back out into the world. There they’ll find inspiration. The same is true for writers. If you’re blocked then go travel somewhere new, or go volunteer at a soup kitchen. Do something that will inspire you. Sitting at your desk (or wherever) staring at the problem won’t help.

How long on average does it take you to write a book?

I couldn’t really say, especially since with 8 Days a Week in particular the editing process was so long, and although I didn’t make any changes to the plot or the characters, how I presented the last two chapters—especially the very last one—changed a great deal through the editing process.

I think the important thing is to write until it seems finished and let the work itself guide you rather than trying to make a schedule for it. Real art doesn’t work on a schedule.

What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer?

One of my best author friends has been Jennifer Fulford, although we grew apart after I moved to Ireland (she’s still in the U.S.) When I met her she’d written a new book about one of the three musketeers and a collection of poetry. I met her at a Unitarian Universalist church and we got along immediately and shortly thereafter were sharing some of our work at a poetry and writing group at the church.

I went to a free workshop she did about how to use Weebly and other sites to make your own website. She not only showed us how to use the sites but how to have fun with them and make the act of building a website not strictly mechanical but an act of creativity in itself.

Shortly thereafter I tried making websites and blogs as a new form of self-expression. This was also very helpful for promoting my work since my novels were too important to me to risk having to change the endings, the stories, or otherwise compromise the works like I knew I might have to if I got a traditional publisher. She said she found it inspiring how I would just go for it like that. Meanwhile, she got published—her musketeers book through a traditional publisher and her short collection of poetry through self-publishing. She said I helped inspire her to have the confidence to publish her own poetry book. I felt very heartened by that. One of my favorite things in life is to help bring out the best in others.

She was quite supportive of me in my writing endeavors and as a friend even though she’s happily a mom and I’m happily childless. In my experience, many women writers basically shun you if you’re a woman who’s happily childless. I had a lot of my work rejected by female editors until I learned to keep my mouth shut about being a happily independent woman when submitting to most female editors. I genuinely don’t understand this kind of behavior; I think it’s best when we all support each other. I assume this means those women are secretly very unhappy with the choices they’ve made in life.

Other writers I’ve known through workshops were helpful in the usual ways writers at workshops are, namely with critical feedback but also encouragement.

However, one writer I thought was my friend did the exact opposite but still had a very positive effect on me.

This was during the editing of 8 Days a Week. Like I said before, I was glad when anyone was nice enough to make the time to look at my little project. So imagine how good I felt when this woman friend insisted that we meet in a café so she could talk to me at length about my book project! Me of all people—someone from a working class background who back then didn’t have a college degree, unlike all the other women in the workshops.

When I got there she was very nice at first, then very quickly started picking the entire project apart. At first I just took it in stride and thought, this is just good practice for in the future when anyone asks me about my projects.

I’d already had years of experience submitting my work for publication to various places so—as any writer knows—that means experience getting your work rejected 99% or more of the time, and sometimes by editors who feel the need to go out of their way to tell you they think your work is garbage and that you’re guilty of an actual crime by making them waste their precious time reading your drivel. So I was quite able to be thick-skinned about critical feedback and to consider any good points.

But I quickly found that when I went to explain my artistic choice she wasn’t listening to me. In fact she was going out of her way to insult, belittle, and pick apart every last thing about my book. And she’d only read the first chapter. For example, one of her complaints was that it was slow. I said that was an artistic choice to show what Sean’s life was like, and to build to a shocking climax much later in the book. Of course she insisted no one would read my terrible, slow, boring book idea long enough to find that out. She also complained that the book was about a working class person and his life and said, why would anyone want to read about that?

Her seeming plan to obliterate my confidence had the opposite effect and made me want to succeed even more. And it just brought home to me how much women need to encourage each other more.

Shortly after that it seemed to me like all the women I’d known from that writers’ group stopped wanting to have anything to do with me. It only occurred to me much later that they may have resented me because I didn’t come from any money or education but still pursued writing. I can look at this logically and see the mechanism of it now but I still don’t really understand it. This is because I always believe that everyone should generally support and encourage each other. I think maybe they just wanted their workshops and to be left alone. There’s nothing wrong with that. But for me it wasn’t just a hobby; it was actually the only thing giving me hope that I could ever get out of poverty.

What are the most important magazines for writers to subscribe to?

I think Poets & Writers is a great resource. They have a great deal of advice about the literary industry as well as varied markets to read and/or submit your work to.

But to be perfectly honest, my opinion of most writers’ magazines is that they’re for people playing at writing. If you want to write I think you should go out and experience life so you have something to write about. I’ve read many stories, essays, and poems in various publications that were linguistically well-composed and grammatically accurate but actually weren’t about anything. I remember one story that was very long, very well-thought of my the publication’s editor, and was ultimately just about a couple ordering soup at one restaurant and another one several years later. In the first instance it was too salty and in the second they thought they had the same waiter, even though it was a different restaurant. When I finished it I just wanted the last 25 to 30 minutes of my life back. More than asking yourself if you can write something and write it well, and more than editors than asking if they can publish it, I think people in the literary community should look at if a work is actually saying anything.

This is why when I read anything, I tend to look for online zines that are well off the mainstream. That way I can find things that will give me a new experience which no other writer (or editor) has given me before.

In my extended family there is one set of twins who love everything to do with writing and storytelling. They subscribe to all of the local literary magazines, watch soap operas all day every day (to study long-term stories), and read books voraciously. Sadly they almost never leave the house. Last Christmas I gave them two books. Angela’s Ashes (an obvious choice for a couple of Irish aspiring writers) and Never Broken, the singer Jewel’s last book. Jewel isn’t an expert writer but if it’s one thing you’ll learn from reading her book it’s that more than anything, if you want to write, you need to just go out into the world and experience life.

I don’t care if her grammar was perfect or not. What I experienced was a vast range of completely unique stories, so bizarre but so true to life she couldn’t have possibly made them up. It genuinely was stranger than fiction.

If you want to create something truly unique than you need to just go live. But then maybe read a little Poets & Writers or some of the articles in Writer’s Market about the industry so you can try to develop a thick skin before you submit any of your work. Artists can sometimes take rejection too personally and have you learn to just move on instead.

Works by Ava Collopy

A View from the Bottom: Short Stories8 Days a Week: the Story of a Working Man, a novelThe Price of Peace: the Rise of Truthology and the Alliance, a noveletteLive Boldly, Fear Nothing: a Vigilante and a Painter, a novel

Ava Collopy is published in White Liquor Steemit, Beautiful Losers, White Liquor, and others. She’s from Portland, Oregon and lives in Dublin, Ireland.

This week I’m writing about the one thing that I think stops more people in their tracks when they really want to write more than anything else: FEAR.

We humans are full of fear. About so many things. And that’s okay. BUT… if we really want to write, we have to overcome it. And this isn’t a one-time deal. Our fear is something we have to keep revisiting over and over and over. The fear dragon is that big.

Aside from all the usual fears we might imaging (I’m not good enough, I’ll never make any money doing this, People won’t like what I have to say, People will get angry about what I have to say, People will think I’m weird/crazy for thinking that, etc. etc. etc…), I think there’s one fear, above all others, that stops many people from honoring their compulsion to write.

FEAR OF EXPOSURE

It’s HARD to acknowledge some of thoughts we have knocking around inside us, let alone share them with strangers, and maybe even more so with people who know us.

It takes a lot of courage and a strong sense of self to own our thoughts and words. The pain of not writing has to be greater than the pain that comes with the judgments (or our imagined judgments) of others before we can move through the fear and just write.

Natalie Goldberg says: “Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to talk about. Be willing to be split open.”

And In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf wrote about cold cocking the angel in the house (that voice in the head that constantly chastises) with her ink well. Do it! Those voices are the fear. Cold cock the voices. They’re the enemy.

So far, we’ve looked at how understanding the Root, Sacral, Power, Heart and Throat chakras can help with our writing. This week, we’re looking at the Third Eye Chakra.

The Third Eye Chakra is about our intuition and being able to express our higher nature, so ultimately, it’s about understanding our purpose in life and pursuing it.

image credit: thirdeyeindigo.wordpress.com

As with previous weeks, we first have to begin with a framework of some kind, and as I’ve mentioned before, I find it’s usually easiest to begin with gender and age.

This week, let’s work with a 58-year-old male. We can begin to think about what this chakra governs and what this character might have missed in that developmental stage.

From a generative stance, then, if we draw on one of the primary fears or negative manifestations of this chakra, we can begin to create a foundation for a story. Let’s use the inability to make sound judgments based on the reality of a situation. Let’s imagine that, in this case, it comes in the form of the following scenario: This character has lived in the same town all his life and plateaued at his career years ago. He’s allowed himself to stay stuck due to a fear of leaving because he’s never been able to make the decision to go. Now, he’s been offered a stellar job in another state, but he’s terrified of taking it. The reason: he has a domineering mother who guilt trips him every time he thinks of doing anything that could further his career path. She’s a paraplegic and never misses an opportunity to remind him of this. (He doesn’t fully see how she manipulates him, though. He has taken on the belief that it’s his duty to be near his mother.) From this, then, we can see that he has not developed a healthy sense of self or purpose in life. If he had, he would have moved on years before. Instead, he has let himself be manipulated by guilt. We could begin this with a conversation between him and his mother wherein he’s attempting to break the news to her. What will transpire? Will he finally make his break, or will the story end up with him making the decision to stay put?

From a corrective standpoint, if we’re already working with a 58-year-old male who is having issues with his guilt-tripping mother, we can begin to ask ourselves questions.

How intuitive is this character?

How imaginative is he?

Does he think “outside the box” or is his idea of reality based on what he sees directly in front of him?